I like the original as well! The colors are great, and because they're big, bold, playful colors, the tricycle seems right in place. My only critique: Not sure if it's lens distortion, or a slight curve in the path, but the line is curved, and slightly lower in the frame on the left.

I typed out a long and convoluted wall of text, then realized I should just have a go at it, and say what I did.

All I did here was take 2 versions of this photo, one where the curve is symmetrical, 1 where the tree is absolutely vertical, and blended them together. It's a subtle difference, but I think the perfection of the lines is important to push the image over the top. Great photo invisible!

My only critique: Not sure if it's lens distortion, or a slight curve in the path, but the line is curved, and slightly lower in the frame on the left.

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Thanks for the kind words and for taking the time to clean up my mess The line was curved (this was actually a big circle) but I don't rule out lens distortion as well. My Nikon 18-200 (which I've just sold after two great years of fun) tended to distort towards the wider end.

All I did here was take 2 versions of this photo, one where the curve is symmetrical, 1 where the tree is absolutely vertical, and blended them together. It's a subtle difference, but I think the perfection of the lines is important to push the image over the top.

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All of the above, while appreciated, is rocket science to me. Would you mind if I sent you the RAW file for you to pull this same magic with it?

Thanks for the kind words and for taking the time to clean up my mess The line was curved (this was actually a big circle) but I don't rule out lens distortion as well. My Nikon 18-200 (which I've just sold after two great years of fun) tended to distort towards the wider end.

All of the above, while appreciated, is rocket science to me. Would you mind if I sent you the RAW file for you to pull this same magic with it?

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Oh, I'm sure you can get it! It's actually pretty easy to do. Here's what I did step by step. (I'd rather pass on the tools than do it all myself!)

1. Copy the whole image to a new one.
2. Use the ruler tool between where the curve meets the edge of the picture on both sides.
3. Image> Rotate> Arbitrary, and accept the prefilled value.

4. Copy the original image again, into a third file.
5. Use the ruler to make a line down the center of the tree
6. Rotate the same way.

7. Take the first rotated image and paste it into the original.
8. Select that layer, and erase everything except the path line (metal siver part)

9. Take the second one, and paste it over both layers
10. Set its opacity to 50% and line it up as best you can with the background layer.
11. Erase all but the tree with some space around it to cover up the original tree.
12. Set opacity back to 100%

13. Erase where necessary to blend the layers together. Use a larger eraser size, with the hardness set very low.

These kinds of edits are intimidating at first, but well worth learning. You can download a tiff with all the layers I used for the edit here.

Haha, my post-processing abilities are so poor that I'm just a "quick fix" in PS Elements type of guy. Like I said, it was rocket science and now getting even "rocketier". Just hope the above post will help someone not as noob as I am, so your educating effort doesn't go unused. Me, I'll find a beginner's way to fix the image

Thanks, rufus. I rarely ever put people in my shots, that's just not my thing... so a full kid wouldn't have worked for me. However, a kid-less shot would have been a tad boring. Half a kid is a good compromise plus it saved me from having to beg for a signed release.

You lost me here. Why would you have needed a release if the whole kid was in the image?

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There are privacy concerns (at least here in Canada), especially if I intend to show the image publicly, be it at a gallery show, the internet, etc. Plus, with the increasing threat of child abduction, child pornography, etc., a good proportion of parents don't want the image of their child taken by a stranger. Just to give you an idea, I used to have a bunch of photos of my niece and nephew on my website and my own bother asked me to take them down. That being said, I don't fully understand what the danger is, but then again I don't have kids.